“So, you’re an old soldier, after all, and afraid of fire-arms. Why don’t you hold yourself up? I suppose it’s that enormous jib of yours that brings you down by the head.”
“Tom, Tom, I’ll cut you into pork pieces if you go on that gait. Go and get dinner under weigh, you scamp, and leave the gentleman alone. Here’s more wind coming.
“A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.”
“Jacob,” said the Dominie, “I have heard by the mouth of Rumour, with her hundred tongues, how careless and indifferent are sailors unto danger; but I never could have believed that such lightness of heart could have been shown. Yon man, although certainly not old in years, yet, what is he?—a remnant of a man resting upon unnatural and ill-proportioned support. Yon lad, who is yet but a child, appears as blythe and merry as if he were in possession of all the world can afford. I have an affection for that bold child, and would fain teach him the rudiments, at least, of the Latin tongue.”
“I doubt if Tom would ever learn them, sir. He hath a will of his own.”
“It grieveth me to hear thee say so, for he lacketh not talent, but instruction; and the Dux, he pleaseth me mightily—a second Palinurus. Yet how that a man could venture to embark upon an element, to struggle through the horrors of which must occasionally demand the utmost exertion of every limb, with the want of the two most necessary for his safety, is to me quite incomprehensible.”
“He can keep his legs, sir.”
“Nay, Jacob; how can he keep what are already gone? Even thou speakest strangely upon the water. I see the dangers that surround us, Jacob, yet I am calm: I feel that I have not lived a wicked life—‘Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,’ as Horace truly saith, may venture, even as I have done, upon the broad expanse of water. What is it that the boy is providing for us? It hath an inviting smell.”
“Lobscouse, master,” replied old Tom, “and not bad lining either.”
“I recollect no such word—unde derivatur, friend?”